An entry in my online diary: Lifeline

Update: 10 March 2004

Alan has now had a new MRI scan done and we have sent copies to The Nether­lands (Professor Michael Jacobs, assoc­iated with Dr Joseph Coselli in Houston) and to University Hospital Chicago (Dr Jeevanandam). Professor Jacobs said the scans didn’t give him enough information and that other scans and information were necessary. He did say, though, that he has operated on patients from the UK and that the NHS had paid for it. Hmmm … really?

Dr Jeevanandam, however, informed us that Alan needed to have his previous surg­ery site repaired as the aorta was completely blocked (can you believe that?) and that his aneurysm could be repaired with an 80% chance of success. Just like that!

It would seem that for the past four years, Alan has survived with not only one kidney and one lung, but with a completely blocked aorta and the blood has been flowing through the original dissection! It seems to me he’s a walking miracle and deserves the chance of life – and who doesn’t? – except our NHS was quite prepared to send this 53-year-old man home to die. It also seems to me that the previous surgery wasn’t carried out correctly, which resulted in his subsequent aneurysm … I assume the strain of blood having to flow through the original dis­section had to give way somewhere.

We are now in the process of trying to negotiate finances so that Alan can have this life-saving operation. We haven’t got any medical insurance and only limited savings, but at least we now know that he can be saved.

Time is of the essence and we need to do something fast. We are pursuing our National Health Service to help fund him, but we realise it could take many months to get a reaction from them.

If Alan should die during this process, then I am determined to carry on this sorry matter now because it may be that many people in this country could be in the same situation. Please keep your fingers crossed for us that we can do something in the nick of time.

Professor Robert Stuart Bonser

NHS Death Row versus The Priory Hospital: Professor 'God' Bonser :)

This blog is a HUGE "Thank You" to Professor Robert Stuart Bonser - of the Priory Hospital in Birmingham - for saving my husbands' life, after he had been deliberately misdiagnosed as inoperable and terminally ill by a Professor with a Knighthood who was working for the NHS.

Cure the NHS campaign group

Dead patients don't cost the NHS a thing

How many women need to stand up to Britain’s cash-strapped National Health Service and strip its policies bare to reveal a strange, ingrown corruption that declares some patients inoperable, and sends them home to die, in order to balance their books and reduce waiting lists?The dual culprits in my husbands' potential demise were a nastily burgeoning aneurysm on his aorta, and a National Health Service so good at hiding life-saving information, even from itself, that it could spend as much to kill him as to save him. When a doctor can save a life, he is supposed to do it, but some keep silent about expensive treatment. Dead patients don't cost the NHS a thing.This could happen to any one of us.When you are given a prognosis with no hope, please don’t stop there. The worldwide web is very useful to help research anything and everything that might apply to your illness. My own research found life-saving information in the USA, The Netherlands, Germany and Norway. But what I really needed was right here in the UK - the NHS just didn't want me to know about it. This story has been featured in Take a Break magazine in the UK.

Sir Professor Peter Bell

The knighted professor at Leicester Royal Infirmary who diagnosed my husband inoperable to save money for the NHS and to meet Government targets. He didn't have the relevant expertise himself but failed to use NHS guidelines to refer my husband to Professor Bonser, until 14 months later, despite knowing of his expertise. click on picture to view email.

University Hospitals Leicester

Cardiologists lead the way in the task of deciding which patients should receive certain expensive diagnostic tests and which should not